It is known from the prior art to print a sheet using a printing device and depositing such sheet in or on a tray, thus collating a number of sheets to form a pile of printed sheets out put by the printing device. Such output trays are in particular known and common in combination with small format sheets. Herein, a sheet is considered to be a small format sheet if the sheet is not larger than about an A3 format (about 42 cm in length and about 30 cm in width).
In large format (larger than A3 format) printing, in view of the relatively low speed and/or low number of prints, such piling of printed sheets has been limited. Moreover, in case a large number of sheets was printed, such printing was performed on a web that was fed from a roll and was then output onto a roll. Hence, no large piles of large format sheets were generated.
Printing large format sheets at a relatively high speed and thereby generating a pile of large format sheets, has a disadvantage that such pile is very difficult to be handled due to a combination of size and weight. Hence, it would be cumbersome to have to remove such pile after every small number of sheets or to have to remove such heavy and large pile. However, in view of productivity, it is preferred to be able to have the printing device to continue printing without requiring any intervention of an operator. So, generating a pile of printed large format sheets without an operator having to intervene during printing results in a heavy pile that is difficult to handle and while handling such heavy pile, the printing device may not be enabled to continue printing, again limiting the productivity of the printing device.
In small format sheet processing, it is known to use a guide element that supports a sheet being output until the sheet is completely output, thus supporting the whole sheet, and then retracting the guide element while preventing the sheet from being retracted with the guide element. Such arrangement is known, for example, from JP1167161A. In large format printing, the use of such a guide element is not feasible, as the guide element would need to be unfeasibly large for supporting.